Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye came out in the 1970s to a blare of trumpets and a gush from no less than Robert Heinlein, who praised it as “possibly the best science-fiction novel that I have ever read.” I’m sure that Heinlein’s having ghost-written part of it had nothing to do with that opinion. The novel was a phenomenom in its day, eagerly read and just as ardently discussed by legions of science-fiction fans worldwide.
I read it in one long, pop-eyed sitting myself. It’s one hell of a good yarn, compulsively readable, and (at least to a guy in his early twenties) an exemplar of everything that’s cool about science fiction: a richly textured distant future, humanity’s first contact with another intelligent species, adventure, danger, manly friendships, but a bare minimum of girly stuff like romance or innerspace soul-searching. Mote is a boy-book, 1930s pulp science-fiction gone hardcover and international.
I revisited it recently and discovered that while I remember just about every detail, down to the most trivial—man, that sucker made a deep impression—this time around I’m mostly impressed by the gaping plot holes that render this sprawling novel more a kid’s cartoon than a serious contender amongst first-contact stories. Mote has been condemned left and right for its cardboard characters (justified), for its mindless social and racial stereotypes (justified), for its buzz-cut-and-pocket-protector white-male environment (justified) that postulates a galactic empire 1000 years in the future that resembles Pasadena circa 1935 (justified), protected by a Navy that resembles Annapolis circa 1925 (justified).
Because Mote is a “what-if” book, it lives or dies on its plausibility. That white-bread-suburbia galactic empire matters less than the basic premises that form the backbone of the story’s problem and eventual solution. Unfortunately, that’s where Mote comes up most notably short. Its fundamental plot is creaky and blatantly obvious. Within the context of its own created future, it postulates the following:
1) Humanity encounters an intelligent species from the planetary system of a small Sun-like star with a nearby red giant star. That small star is called the “Mote” since from a distance it looks like a yellow fleck on the edge of the red giant star.
2) Faster-than-light space travel is possible (hard to imagine a galactic empire without it) but only between specific nodal points, typically one per star system. A ship that enters said nodal point emerges instantaneously at the nodal point in a neighboring star system.
3) Humanity has invented an effective force field that protects spaceships and cities alike from powerful destructive energies, up to and including those produced by nuclear fusion.
Add to that the following tidbits about the newly-encountered “Moties”:
1) The Moties are a differentiated species, having subspecies for specific roles such as Doctor, Mediator, Master, Engineer, and even Farmer and Porter. A Warrior subspecies makes a terrestrial velociraptor look like a purring kitten by comparison.
2) Male Moties periodically enter an estrus cycle and become female, at which point they must become pregnant or they die.
3) The Moties have failed to invent a viable contraceptive, just as they have never developed a working force field.
Because Moties are unable to control their rapid breeding or expand out of their planetary system, they enter periodic hyper-Malthusian population crises. Nuclear (or worse) war breaks out and they bomb themselves back into the stone ages. Humanity encounters a Mote civilization teetering on the edge of yet another such crisis.
The Moties are technologically more advanced than humanity. They can move planets around. They have performed countless genetic experiments and have even deliberately created some of their own subspecies. They have kept scrupulous records of their technological achievements in past cycles, so they have something like a million years worth of scientific knowledge at their fingertips. And yet they haven’t been able to invent a birth control pill.
That’s absurdity Number One.
Absurdity Number Two: the Moties have discovered faster-than-light travel and they have a nodal point in their system. But it turns out that the exit point is smack dab in the middle of the nearby red giant star. So every attempt at faster-than-light travel ends with their getting fricaseed. They have discovered faster-than-light travel, they’ve undergone numerous nuclear wars, they can move planets around and use them as weapons, but they haven’t invented a force field that would have protected them from the energy inside the red giant star.
How convenient!
Once first contact has been made, the Moties see that force fields are possible (as if they wouldn’t have already) and so it’s just a matter of time before they will build one for themselves. The book attempts a wan explanation of the objections to contraception, but it doesn’t wash. Both the force field and birth-control issues are obvious manufactured plot devices, concocted to explain why the galaxy hasn’t already been overrun by a technologically advanced and prolific species that, among other things, has a demonic warrior subspecies that can make mincemeat out of even the most buff Marines. The Moties are trapped inside their own planetary system due to their lack of a force field, and it will be a cold day in hell before humanity’s leaders will teach them how to make one.
The novel ends with the Moties blockaded in their planetary system by a squadron of Empire ships that stand ready to vaporize any Motie vessel that emerges from the red giant star. The Navy will wait around for the inevitable population-induced crash, and then they’ll go back in and mop up the joint.
And we Americans wonder why so many other nations hate us…